A fictitious domain name is a domain name used in a work of fiction or popular culture to refer to a domain that does not actually exist, often with invalid or unofficial top-level domains such as ".web", a usage exactly analogous to the dummy 555 telephone number prefix used in film and other media. The canonical fictitious domain name is "example.com", specifically set aside by IANA in RFC 2606 for such use, along with the .example TLD.
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The practice of using a simple memorable abstraction of a host's numerical address on a computer network dates back to the ARPANET era, before the advent of today's commercial Internet. In the early network, each computer on the network retrieved the hosts file (host.txt) from a computer at SRI (now SRI International),[4][5] which mapped computer hostnames to numerical addresses. The rapid growth of the network made it impossible to maintain a centrally organized hostname registry and in 1983 the Domain Name System was introduced on the ARPANET and published by the Internet Engineering Task Force as RFC 882 and RFC 883.
16. JustHostJustHost‘s functionality revolves around one main idea: eliminating all complexity attached to the creation and maintenance of a website, and making the experience enjoyable for all users. It encompasses tools to manage your entire online journey, from launching and managing a website to advertising on it and earning money from and around your content. As soon as your site goes live, JustHost ensures you can promote it on Google, Bing, and MOJO marketplaces, and download hundreds of apps and plugins that could be useful to your business. JustHost also specializes in app hosting for WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla sites, and offers cPanel and VPS packages.
GlowHost earned our kudos for its 91-day money-back guarantee. It's six days short of DreamHost's 97-day guarantee, but with these numbers, who's quibbling over a few days? The company also offers 24/7/365 phone support option and free cPanel offering for most plans. The company operates 18 data centers worldwide. Finally, the company garnered extra kudos by driving all its hosting services with wind power.
4. HostGatorHostGator is our top choice on our 20 best web hosting companies list without a doubt. It specializes in website, VPS hosting, and dedicated services for over 9 million users so far. Their cloud-hosting packages are among the most affordable packages of this kind in the market, and yet guarantee 2x faster performance and 4x enhanced scalability, with a dashboard that is very easy to use. For WordPress users, HostGator offers built-for-speed plans with advanced security and free migrations, while VPS hosting users will benefit from full root access and scalable resources. A Dedicated Hosting package, on the other hand, will equip you with an end-to-end management package for ultimate performance, and a price scaled to meet your specific needs. What HostGator is best known for is providing a streamlined hosting experience, as a support team is there to assist you 24/7 and to guarantee the company’s impeccable 99.9% uptime. Plus, you can have your existing website seamlessly transferred to a HostGator location or use their handy Website Builder to create a brand new one. As a HostGator user, you’ll also be entering a millions-wide user community, and be able to exchange opinions with website owners worldwide. In case you’re not satisfied, you can rely on the company’s 45-days money-back guarantee.
A fully qualified domain name (FQDN) is a domain name that is completely specified with all labels in the hierarchy of the DNS, having no parts omitted. Labels in the Domain Name System are case-insensitive, and may therefore be written in any desired capitalization method, but most commonly domain names are written in lowercase in technical contexts.[2]
Technical contact. The technical contact manages the name servers of a domain name. The functions of a technical contact include assuring conformance of the configurations of the domain name with the requirements of the domain registry, maintaining the domain zone records, and providing continuous functionality of the name servers (that leads to the accessibility of the domain name).

An important function of domain names is to provide easily recognizable and memorizable names to numerically addressed Internet resources. This abstraction allows any resource to be moved to a different physical location in the address topology of the network, globally or locally in an intranet. Such a move usually requires changing the IP address of a resource and the corresponding translation of this IP address to and from its domain name.

I just wanted to recognize these two employees as they are both amazing. I spoke to Ken and he helped me with my site statistics and setting up a bunch of other things. He was so patient and knowledgeable. Eric, I spoke with on the next day as I was setting up my mobile site view and he was amazing too and even gave me a call back as he tried to change something for me. Anyway they are both amazing. Great customer service!
6. GoDaddyWith a reputation similar to HostGator, GoDaddy sets up multiple examples of how the best website hosting is supposed to function. This publicly-traded American Internet domain company went beyond HostGator’s head-spinning success and currently serves over 17 million users and supports 72 million domains all around the globe. In that aspect, GoDaddy can be considered as the world’s largest domain name hub and hosting service provider, and also praised by users for being highly secure. What makes GoDaddy unique is its focus on the corporate community – there are business-friendly .store domains that have been highly appreciated by online shoppers, as well as affordable SSL certificates that guarantee the safety of each user’s data. In a fashion reminiscent of HostGator, GoDaddy offers a hands-on website builder tool for novice users, lets owners retain control of what is happening on their websites, and comes with a 24/7/365 support and professional assistance.

We liked how Web Hosting Hub describes its new customer process. It tells new customers, "We walk you through setting up your account in a personal on-boarding call." The company has a few other wins as well. It offers an all-SSD infrastructure, automatic vulnerability patches and a custom firewall, SSH access for certain plans, free site migration and an excellent 90-day money-back guarantee.

Beyond that, DreamHost is a top website hosting company for many reasons. It operate its own control panel, which is convenient and easy to understand. While phone customer support isn't available 24/7, it is responsive to live chat and tickets. The company uses super-fast SSDs for all its storage, has a free SSL certificate (for more secured web browsing) and provides SSH access for those plans that are intended for more technical users.
Domain names are often seen in analogy to real estate in that domain names are foundations on which a website can be built, and the highest quality domain names, like sought-after real estate, tend to carry significant value, usually due to their online brand-building potential, use in advertising, search engine optimization, and many other criteria.
Serving more than 15 million members, Bravenet provides a full-service hosting option for people looking for the complete package. In addition to a drag-and-drop site builder and unlimited storage, the Canadian company is one of the only free web hosters with an email marketing platform. Customers can also enjoy community-building features such as message boards, mailing lists, blogs, contact forms, polls, and other tools.
Rounding out the wins, InMotion offers a full 90-day money-back guarantee. On top of that, here's a special money-saving hint. In a chat session confirming pricing and offerings, the operator offered me some special prices and deals that reduced the published price by a few bucks. I was also told that while promotional pricing does go up at the end of the offer period, if you contact customer service, InMotion has a "loyal customer discount" that may bring the price back down.
Until 1991, the Internet was restricted to use only "...for research and education in the sciences and engineering..."[1][2] and was used for email, telnet, FTP and USENET traffic—but only a tiny number of web pages. The World Wide Web protocols had only just been written[3][4] and not until the end of 1993 would there be a graphical web browser for Mac or Windows computers.[5] Even after there was some opening up of internet access, the situation was confused until 1995.[6]
In the first quarter of 2015, 294 million domain names had been registered.[17] A large fraction of them are in the com TLD, which as of December 21, 2014, had 115.6 million domain names,[18] including 11.9 million online business and e-commerce sites, 4.3 million entertainment sites, 3.1 million finance related sites, and 1.8 million sports sites.[19] As of July 2012 the com TLD had more registrations than all of the ccTLDs combined.[20]
Hostingspell is a big fraud company. All the fraudsters are sitting there to grab customers hard earned money. I have gone through several Hostingspell reviews and saw all the positive reviews, then I purchased two hosting services from them and before purchase they told me that they have 7 days refund policy. After purchasing, my site was migrated and then I saw a third grade hosting performance. Their server remains down almost all the time. When contacted they replied 'Our upsilon server crashed due to high IO usage'. My live site remains down for several times in a day. Then I purchased 4x performance upgrade plan thinking that the issue can be resolved. But no improvement. Then I asked them to cancel the hosting and refund my money. Till then one of my hosting accounts has crossed 7 days but other didn't crossed even 48 hours. Their whatsapp agent told me that Refund is not available after 36 hours although they told me about 7 days refund policy. The intention is only deny the refund request. I will slap the agent if I got him in front of me. The fraud was clearly observed from the whatsapp chat. When contacting Sales support, they replied that after 7 days refund is not possible. Two agents of the same company told two different words. Now you think what's happening there. Please guys don't believe in their fake reviews. Don't go for cheap hosting companies. Don't waste your valuable money and time.

Source: Hosting Tribunal (2019)Getting reliable hosting is the most important decision you will make: without it, even the best-crafted site won’t make any sense. Adjusted to your scope of operations, hosting will eliminate the risk you’re taking by adhering to free-to-use networks and services, and put you in absolute control over how your data is accessed and managed. Better yet, paid-for hosting unties your hands to brand a website as you want it, and use all the tools and plugins that can help your business. Meantime, hosting pulls the strings of all key performance metrics such as the site’s promotion on search engines and its loading speed.The king of all benefits will nonetheless remain security—unless you’re ready to bounce off attacks and intrusions all by yourself.Which are the best web hosting companies? There is no standardized answer to this question, as each site owner has a unique list of requirements a service must respond to. At the beginning of this demanding process, however, we should shortlist the systems that cater to our needs, which we can afford.1. InMotion HostingInMotion Hosting also pleases clients with reliable hosting tools (cloud, VPS, dedicated), but also offers web design and development services for users who’d rather have their online journey launched from a single dashboard. Depending on the website you’re creating, you can consider one of their business-exclusive hosting packages, or have the service optimized WordPress performance or upselling.InMotion prides itself on its commitment to open source and features sponsorship with three platforms next to one with WordPress (Joomla, b2evolution, and PrestaShop). It is also a suitable choice for developing and growing business as it is very scalable and makes the transition to a different package seamless. It may be of interest that they work with PCI compliant data servers and constantly invest in new technology, and have been praised all over user forums for being professional and supportive.

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When it comes to server operating systems, Linux is typically the default option. Still, some services offer a choice of Linux or Windows hosting. If you have specific server-side applications that require Windows, such as SQL Server or a custom application written in .NET, then you need to make sure your web host has Windows hosting. But don't let the idea of a Linux host intimidate you. Nowadays, most web hosts offer a graphical interface or a control panel to simplify server administration and website management. Instead of typing at the command line, you'll click easily identifiable icons.

It shouldn't come as any surprise that, like other web host providers, A2 Hosting's unlimited plans aren't actually unlimited. It expect you to use its service like "similarly situated customers." This is like being on a highway. If everyone is going a few miles above the speed limit, you're probably okay, but if you're barreling down the fast lane past everyone else, you're probably going to be asked to slow down.

Don't get discouraged in your domain name search if what you're looking for is already taken. We have a couple of ways for dealing with such a situation. You can try our Domain Broker Service, where we negotiate acquiring the domain from its current owner. We also offer a Domain Backorder service, where you purchase a backorder credit to give you a chance to get the domain when it goes into auction.

The best web hosting service right now is Bluehost. Based in Utah, Bluehost is the preferred partner for WordPress, the world's favourite website builder. This service does a great job of balancing price and features for less experienced businesses, while offering lots of options for more advanced users. Its shared hosting packages start with a very reasonable 'basic' plan, targeted at home users.
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Rounding out the wins, InMotion offers a full 90-day money-back guarantee. On top of that, here's a special money-saving hint. In a chat session confirming pricing and offerings, the operator offered me some special prices and deals that reduced the published price by a few bucks. I was also told that while promotional pricing does go up at the end of the offer period, if you contact customer service, InMotion has a "loyal customer discount" that may bring the price back down.

A Content Distribution Network (CDN) is a network of servers distributed geographically. The purpose of a CDN is to deliver content on the internet much faster. If a user in Toronto is trying to access your website, the closest server to them will take care of this. But someone coming to your website from Sydney, Australia, will be catered to by a server closest to them. The main host server holds your website content, and all the other servers have a cached version each.

We liked how Web Hosting Hub describes its new customer process. It tells new customers, "We walk you through setting up your account in a personal on-boarding call." The company has a few other wins as well. It offers an all-SSD infrastructure, automatic vulnerability patches and a custom firewall, SSH access for certain plans, free site migration and an excellent 90-day money-back guarantee.
Similar to the dedicated web hosting service, but the user owns the colo server; the hosting company provides physical space that the server takes up and takes care of the server. This is the most powerful and expensive type of web hosting service. In most cases, the colocation provider may provide little to no support directly for their client's machine, providing only the electrical, Internet access, and storage facilities for the server. In most cases for colo, the client would have his own administrator visit the data center on site to do any hardware upgrades or changes. Formerly, many colocation providers would accept any system configuration for hosting, even ones housed in desktop-style minitower cases, but most hosts now require rack mount enclosures and standard system configurations.
But, again, operationally it's quite strong. 24/7/365 customer support is available not only by live chat and email, but by phone. It offers free site migrations with some dedicated attention paid to making a transfer as smooth as possible. And, if you're willing to go for one of the higher-end plans, the company has put some serious attention into performance and caching.

A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their website accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server owned or leased for use by clients, as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data center. Web hosts can also provide data center space and connectivity to the Internet for other servers located in their data center, called colocation, also known as Housing in Latin America or France.

We liked how Web Hosting Hub describes its new customer process. It tells new customers, "We walk you through setting up your account in a personal on-boarding call." The company has a few other wins as well. It offers an all-SSD infrastructure, automatic vulnerability patches and a custom firewall, SSH access for certain plans, free site migration and an excellent 90-day money-back guarantee.
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Almost all the services offer some sort of drag-and-drop website builder that makes it easy to drag and drop items to build your page. These are great for getting started, but they often lock you into the service. Most page builders are proprietary to the service, or don't create HTML that's portable enough to be easily moved to another service if you decide it's necessary.
The company also offers higher-end Windows and Linux servers, available with Plesk and cPanel respectively. We were very intrigued to see that the company offers low-end Atom-based dedicated servers as well as the more traditional Xeon-based machines. One great resource for those doing some basic experimentation, or site development, is that it has a free, three-month trial for one of its lightly equipped Atom servers.
For over a decade we’ve helped business owners, entrepreneurs, bloggers and digital enthusiasts make their online vision a reality with award winning web hosting services. For both personal and professional websites, we are the Canadian web hosting company you can rely on. We have the technology to ensure your site runs smoothly and we’re here for you every hour of everyday. Want to succeed online? Use HostPapa web hosting services to power your website.
The company doesn't list a virtual private server offering, but it bills its Elastic Sites service as a VPS alternative, offering the ease of use of a simple shared hosting plan and the performance and scalability of a VPS. GlowHost also offers a number of different cloud hosting plans, with special attention to providing enterprise-grade services.
8. iPageiPage is another hosting service that made history, thanks to its excellent traction with customers. The company serves multiple geographies, offering standard cloud and WordPress hosting, but also selling exclusive domains and catering to teams in need of marketing and placement services. For almost 20 years, iPage offers small businesses an affordable alternative for shifting operations to the web, making sure they won’t be deprived of any exclusive features used by their larger competitors. This, however, is not the only thing that makes iPage a preferred provider – the company features an intuitive, code-free website management process, which makes it ideal also for personal, non-profit, and social brand websites. With them, you get free domain registration, unlimited email accounts, unmetered bandwidth, and disk space, and constant monitoring of your data.
Our Website Backup automatically backs up your data – every day. And in worst-case scenarios, if disaster strikes, it’s ok – you can restore your data with a single “click.” So, get Website Backup and stop worrying about data loss. Get back to doing what you do best – running your business and making money. And speaking of money, here’s the best part – we’re offering it for only C$1.99/mo.
3. CloudwaysCloudways, a managed cloud hosting services provider based in Malta, claims to be the best WordPress and WooCommerce hosting company. Cloudways aims to give design agencies, ecommerce store owners, bloggers, and developers the power to set up websites and manage web apps with ease. The platform caters to the need of individuals, teams, and businesses in different verticals such as media, IT, healthcare, fashion/apparel, interactive design studios, and entertainment.Although the company doesn’t offer a variety of hosting services, its Platform-as-a-Service, cloud-based web hosting sets it apart from other hosting providers. Besides, its array of reliable features, including SSD-based hosting, pre-configured PHP-FPM, one-click backup, and PHP 7 ready servers, enable users to create better digital experiences, maximize growth, and scale operations faster. Its service is backed by 24/7 expert support, which is available via live chat and ticket.The solution combines multiple core services such as Varnish, NGINX, Apache, MySQL, and Memcached to deliver seamless experience without impacting code compatibility. It also boasts a network of 41 datacenter locations, which make it easy to provision from the industry’s leading infrastructure providers such as Google Compute Engine, Amazon Web Services, Vultr, and DigitalOcean.For WordPress users, Cloudways is not only highly reliable, fast, and secure; it is affordable as well. The solution offers diverse pricing plans, plus it comes with a free WordPress migration plugin designed to streamline migration on multiple hosting environments. Also, as a Cloudways user, you will probably find its one-click managed services to be particularly impressive. With the one-click installations, it’s a breeze to get your WordPress and WooCommerce website or online store up and running right from the Cloudways control panel, in minutes.
The web hosting provider offers solid plans with a good selection of features. The one area we're concerned about is how it presents its offers. Like many hosting providers, its published pricing is a bit misleading. You're not getting hosting for $2.96/mo unless you pay $71 for two years of service. Renewals are generally at a higher rate, although a salesperson we spoke to advised you ask for a "loyalty discount."